Death by Winter

Salt - like a million tiny pieces
of broken glass -
piles up on tired gray pavement.
The smoke of going places
hangs in the air
and the sky just looks cold.
The sun, it says, can't be bothered today.
I don't know who decided
January was the beginning,
but it looks
and smells
and feels
like death to me.
Like suffocating
in the freezing depths of the Atlantic
while whales sing mournful songs
and search for their lost young
and no one else knows you're gone.
My mind is numb like my fingers
and I imagine it turning grey
and brittle,
crystallizing like the icicles that hang from my front door,
stained amber from years of dirt collecting
in old, grey siding.
Because a mind is a very fragile thing, you know.
Or maybe it looks more like the wet, grey slush
slopped on roads and sidewalks,
seeping into boots
and socks
and pants
and cars.
It began as beautiful, pure, white powder,
but how quickly it turned.
Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste, you know.
So I shiver
and try to move on.